Wake Me Up — Ninaland

It’s the end of January, hopefully this horrible month will end. I’m so tired I can barely talk about it. I don’t always write about politics because, honestly, I’m too tired. I’m tired of Trump, I’m tired of this entire administration, and I’m tired of MAGA.

At this point, it’s much worse than tiring; it’s frightening. ICE has created a situation where many of us are panicking.

I’m currently trying to get an enhanced ID because I don’t walk around with any proof of citizenship. I’m brown. They are killing white people; if they can do that, what can they do to my people?

I mean, quite literally, if I’m at the wrong place at the wrong time, I could end up in jail, in another country. I could end up dead.

This is real.

What is happening? How did we let it get this bad? This forum is the only way I can think of speaking out. I don’t know what else to do.

I talked to my American cousin who lives in Australia, and she’s freaking out. And she said to me that everyone should be freaking out, or this will not change. She lives thousands of miles away, and she’s more worried than many people in this country.

I’m thinking of the last ten years, the highlights were: a dictator comes into office, police brutality against African Americans, bans on abortion, and now assaults, murders, and detainment of immigrants and anyone protesting on their behalf.

Now I’m just going to relay this message to my fellow white people: white people are even under attack, which means that even you are not safe. It’s time for all of us, white men, white women, brown, black, whatever, to wake up. The writing is on the wall, and it’s written in blood. How many more people have to be tortured or die?

What to do? What to do? Honestly, you can only make a difference in your sphere of influence. Make that difference, speak up. I would say go protest, but for me, I’m scared I will literally be detained by ICE if I protest in the streets. So I’m protesting here.

Let’s protest, boycott, let’s strike, let’s vote, and write our representatives that this is not going to work!

I am crying right now because my mom told me about an airplane they sent to India from America full of immigrants, and all of them were shackled from head to toe.

Do you think that an ICE agent knows that if you have an enhanced ID, you are a citizen? They don’t seem that smart. I have actually, no joke, thought about carrying my original birth certificate in my purse.

My cousin, who now lives in Australia, used to live in Russia. You had to carry your papers at all times in that country, or you could go to jail.

Hmmm…we look down on Russia, don’t we? We think Putin is a monster, but we need to look in the American mirror. The monsters here just wear more makeup.

A felon is running this country. He’s multiplying in wealth since being in office. Bernie Sanders always says we need to make sure this country gets rid of its oligarchic tendencies.

We are not free. We are afraid of the police and of ICE. We can’t control our own bodies in some states. There’s this quote I remember: “If a man is lying in chains anywhere, none of us are free,”--Anonymous.

I believe there is a way out of this. Cynicism doesn’t help anyone; it is equivalent to giving up. We can’t give up. We are stronger than that. We are better than that.

America started as an experiment in freedom. In many ways, it failed the entire time, for women, for minorities. But there’s this dream in the constitution of freedom. We have to honor that dream.

We have to honor those like MLK who fought for that dream.

This is a nightmare. And silently looking away is complicit; it’s allowing things to occur that are horrific and unimaginable.

America is a dream that hasn’t come true yet, but there is potential for it to be a place of great freedom and equality.

Let’s live that dream, let’s honor that dream. Let’s fight the bad guys in any way we know how. Any way.

Are things going to get worse? Probably before they get better. But I have faith that the average American is smarter than all of this. Even Joe Schmoe knows the difference between right and wrong, most of the time.

I mean, honestly, it’s not even profitable to have this lunatic in office. He will destroy our economy if we don’t stop him. It makes sense for no one.

*A protester confronting a force of California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers on the 101 freeway in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. (photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)*

I’m an average gal with a lot of privilege, by the way, but I know all of that can be taken away. They can take anything away from you, I learned that from my immigrant parents. I know how fragile my well-being is; I am a woman of color. It doesn’t matter how much education or money I have; I’m a minority woman in a white man’s world.

The whole world is losing its mind, Ukraine, Gaza. I have a friend who has designated a ‘safe place’ in case the world goes to hell, and she has to hide with her children. She’s thought about how she will leave the country and where she will go.

I thought she was crazy at first, but she’s also in a minority religion and a minority race.

If they are killing white people, she said, what can they do to us? That’s a really good question.

They can do harm, harm beyond our wildest imaginations. This is a time when you don’t have the privilege to be apolitical, no matter who you are. Let’s wake up from this nightmare.

My mother would be appalled that I am protesting the government online, in writing. She’s scared. She told me a long time ago that even the walls have ears. She was right, our phones have been listening to us since the beginning. There’s no way to know if you are not on some kind of list. The people who oppose Trump list.

Well, if there’s any list I want to be on, that’s the one.

nina